This tutorial makes you a master of character sets in Python. (I know, I know, it feels awesome to see your deepest desires finally come true.)

As I wrote this article, I saw a lot of different terms describing this same powerful concept such as “character class“, “character range“, or “character group“. However, the most precise term is “character set” as introduced in the official Python regex docs. So in this tutorial, I’ll use this term throughout.

Python Regex – Character Set

So, what is a character set in regular expressions?

The character set is (surprise) a set of characters: if you use a character set in a regular expression pattern, you tell the regex engine to choose one arbitrary character from the set. As you may know, a set is an unordered collection of unique elements. So each character in a character set is unique and the order doesn’t really matter (with a few minor exceptions).

Here’s an example of a character set as used in a regular expression:

>>> import re

>>> re.findall('[abcde]', 'hello world!')

['e', 'd']

You use the re.findall(pattern, string) method to match the pattern '[abcde]' in the string 'hello world!'. You can think of all characters a, b, c, d, and e as being in an OR relation: either of them would be a valid match.

The regex engine goes from the left to the right, scanning over the string ‘hello world!’ and simultaneously trying to match the (character set) pattern. Two characters from the text ‘hello world!’ are in the character set—they are valid matches and returned by the re.findall() method.

You can simplify many character sets by using the range symbol ‘-‘ that has a special meaning within square brackets: [a-z] reads “match any character from a to z”, while [0-9] reads “match any character from 0 to 9”.

Here’s the previous example, simplified:

>>> re.findall('[a-e]', 'hello world!')

['e', 'd']

You can even combine multiple character ranges in a single character set:

>>> re.findall('[a-eA-E0-4]', 'hello WORLD 42!')

['e', 'D', '4', '2']

Here, you match three ranges: lowercase characters from a to e, uppercase characters from A to E, and numbers from 0 to 4. Note that the ranges are inclusive so both start and stop symbols are included in the range.

Python Regex Negative Character Set

But what if you want to match all characters—except some? You can achieve this with a negative character set!

The negative character set works just like a character set, but with one difference: it matches all characters that are not in the character set.

Here’s an example where you match all sequences of characters that do not contain characters a, b, c, d, or e:

>>> import re

>>> re.findall('[^a-e]+', 'hello world')

['h', 'llo worl']

We use the “at-least-once quantifier +” in the example that matches at least one occurrence of the preceding regex (if you’re unsure about how it works, check out my detailed Finxter tutorial about the plus operator).

There are only two such sequences: the one-character sequence ‘h’ and the eight-character sequence ‘llo worl’. You can see that even the empty space matches the negative character set.

Summary: the negative character set matches all characters that are not enclosed in the brackets.

How to Fix “re.error: unterminated character set at position”?

Now that you know character classes, you can probably fix this error easily: it occurs if you use the opening (or closing) bracket ‘[‘ in your pattern. Maybe you want to match the character ‘[‘ in your string?

But Python assumes that you’ve just opened a character class—and you forgot to close it.

Here’s an example:

>>> re.findall('[', 'hello [world]')

Traceback (most recent call last): File "<pyshell#5>", line 1, in <module> re.findall('[', 'hello [world]') File "C:\Users\xcent\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\re.py", line 223, in findall return _compile(pattern, flags).findall(string) File "C:\Users\xcent\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\re.py", line 286, in _compile p = sre_compile.compile(pattern, flags) File "C:\Users\xcent\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\sre_compile.py", line 764, in compile p = sre_parse.parse(p, flags) File "C:\Users\xcent\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\sre_parse.py", line 930, in parse p = _parse_sub(source, pattern, flags & SRE_FLAG_VERBOSE, 0) File "C:\Users\xcent\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\sre_parse.py", line 426, in _parse_sub not nested and not items)) File "C:\Users\xcent\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\sre_parse.py", line 532, in _parse source.tell() - here)

re.error: unterminated character set at position 0

The error happens because you used the bracket character ‘[‘ as if it was a normal symbol.

So, how to fix it? Just escape the special bracket character ‘\[‘ with the single backslash:

>>> re.findall('\[', 'hello [world]')

['[']

This removes the “special” meaning of the bracket symbol.

Related Re Methods

There are seven important regular expression methods which you must master:

• The re.findall(pattern, string) method returns a list of string matches. Read more in our blog tutorial.
• The re.search(pattern, string) method returns a match object of the first match. Read more in our blog tutorial.
• The re.match(pattern, string) method returns a match object if the regex matches at the beginning of the string. Read more in our blog tutorial.
• The re.fullmatch(pattern, string) method returns a match object if the regex matches the whole string. Read more in our blog tutorial.
• The re.compile(pattern) method prepares the regular expression pattern—and returns a regex object which you can use multiple times in your code. Read more in our blog tutorial.
• The re.split(pattern, string) method returns a list of strings by matching all occurrences of the pattern in the string and dividing the string along those. Read more in our blog tutorial.
• The re.sub(The re.sub(pattern, repl, string, count=0, flags=0) method returns a new string where all occurrences of the pattern in the old string are replaced by repl. Read more in our blog tutorial.

These seven methods are 80% of what you need to know to get started with Python’s regular expression functionality. If you want to learn more, check out the most comprehensive Python regex tutorial in the world!

Where to Go From Here?

You’ve learned everything you need to know about the Python Regex Character Set Operator.

Summary:

If you use a character set [XYZ] in a regular expression pattern, you tell the regex engine to choose one arbitrary character from the set: X, Y, or Z.

Want to earn money while you learn Python? Average Python programmers earn more than $50 per hour. You can certainly become average, can’t you?

Join the free webinar that shows you how to become a thriving coding business owner online!

[Webinar] Become a Six-Figure Freelance Developer with Python

Join us. It’s fun!

The comes a time in every project where you have to switch from a developmental Work In Progress branch to the main branch and that time just occurred for the Godot game engine.  The WIP Vulkan (and C++14) port is now the official branch on the Godot Github.

Details from the Godot news page:

The Vulkan port is not ready yet, but we need to get it merged into the master branch as a lot of further development planned for Godot 4.0 depends on it.

We plan to rework a lot of Godot’s internals (core) to allow fixing long-standing design issues and improving performance (including GDScript performance improvements). Moreover, our long-awaited port to C++14 will also happen now that the vulkan branch is merged into master, and many other codebase-wide changes were waiting for this: code style changes, Display/OS split, renaming of 3D nodes to unify our conventions, etc.

The scope of the planned changes means that it would be impossible to do these changes in the master branch while keeping the vulkan branch separate, just as it would not be possible to do all those changes in the vulkan branch itself before merging into master: any rebase/merge would become extremely difficult due to the sheer amount of lines of code that will change.

Up until now, we’ve been very cautious with regard to what changes we allow in the vulkan branch, as well as what new PRs we merge in master, to ensure that the vulkan branch can always be rebased on top of master for a later merge. I’ve been rebasing it periodically over the past 8 months, and even though we’ve been very conservative in the scope of the changes, in later months a full rebase could easily take me a full day of work.

So we need everything in the main branch to stop limiting ourselves.

Moving the development branch from 3.2 to 4.0 has some side effects, specifically outstanding Pull Requests.  Unfortunately the simplest option seems to be the best in this case, to close those requests and hopefully “port” them to the new master branch.

While closing PRs may seem a bit abrupt, we ask all contributors to understand that this is done to help us cope with the sheer amount of proposals in parallel to having to refactor a lot of the engine’s codebase. This closing does not mean that we reject the PRs, nor that we do not seem them as worthy contributions. But by asking the authors to re-assess their own proposals and make them compatible with Godot 4.0, we will save a lot of precious development time and get ourselves some breathing air in the current overcrowded PRs.

Closed PRs will have the salvageable label, which we use to denote PRs with code that could be salvaged to make a new, updated (and possibly improved) PR, either by the original author or by a new contributor. So we will not lose code in the process, since everything will still be accessible from the closed PRs and easily identifiable thanks to the salvageable label.

If you use a major release version downloaded from Godot’s download page or from Steam, this change doesn’t actually effect you.  If you want to check out the new Vulkan master branch but don’t want to build the code yourself, you can get a nightly build here.

Learn more about this change and it’s ramifications in the video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kpSUd-8zHs&w=853&h=480]

GameDev News Godot

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By Joe Robinson 11 Feb 2020

This tutorial makes you a master of character sets in Python. (I know, I know, it feels awesome to see your deepest desires finally come true.)

As I wrote this article, I saw a lot of different terms describing this same powerful concept such as “character class“, “character range“, or “character group“. However, the most precise term is “character set” as introduced in the official Python regex docs. So in this tutorial, I’ll use this term throughout.

Python Regex – Character Set

So, what is a character set in regular expressions?

The character set is (surprise) a set of characters: if you use a character set in a regular expression pattern, you tell the regex engine to choose one arbitrary character from the set. As you may know, a set is an unordered collection of unique elements. So each character in a character set is unique and the order doesn’t really matter (with a few minor exceptions).

Here’s an example of a character set as used in a regular expression:

>>> import re

>>> re.findall('[abcde]', 'hello world!')

['e', 'd']

You use the re.findall(pattern, string) method to match the pattern '[abcde]' in the string 'hello world!'. You can think of all characters a, b, c, d, and e as being in an OR relation: either of them would be a valid match.

The regex engine goes from the left to the right, scanning over the string ‘hello world!’ and simultaneously trying to match the (character set) pattern. Two characters from the text ‘hello world!’ are in the character set—they are valid matches and returned by the re.findall() method.

You can simplify many character sets by using the range symbol ‘-‘ that has a special meaning within square brackets: [a-z] reads “match any character from a to z”, while [0-9] reads “match any character from 0 to 9”.

Here’s the previous example, simplified:

>>> re.findall('[a-e]', 'hello world!')

['e', 'd']

You can even combine multiple character ranges in a single character set:

>>> re.findall('[a-eA-E0-4]', 'hello WORLD 42!')

['e', 'D', '4', '2']

Here, you match three ranges: lowercase characters from a to e, uppercase characters from A to E, and numbers from 0 to 4. Note that the ranges are inclusive so both start and stop symbols are included in the range.

Python Regex Negative Character Set

But what if you want to match all characters—except some? You can achieve this with a negative character set!

The negative character set works just like a character set, but with one difference: it matches all characters that are not in the character set.

Here’s an example where you match all sequences of characters that do not contain characters a, b, c, d, or e:

>>> import re

>>> re.findall('[^a-e]+', 'hello world')

['h', 'llo worl']

We use the “at-least-once quantifier +” in the example that matches at least one occurrence of the preceding regex (if you’re unsure about how it works, check out my detailed Finxter tutorial about the plus operator).

There are only two such sequences: the one-character sequence ‘h’ and the eight-character sequence ‘llo worl’. You can see that even the empty space matches the negative character set.

Summary: the negative character set matches all characters that are not enclosed in the brackets.

How to Fix “re.error: unterminated character set at position”?

Now that you know character classes, you can probably fix this error easily: it occurs if you use the opening (or closing) bracket ‘[‘ in your pattern. Maybe you want to match the character ‘[‘ in your string?

But Python assumes that you’ve just opened a character class—and you forgot to close it.

Here’s an example:

>>> re.findall('[', 'hello [world]')

Traceback (most recent call last): File "<pyshell#5>", line 1, in <module> re.findall('[', 'hello [world]') File "C:\Users\xcent\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\re.py", line 223, in findall return _compile(pattern, flags).findall(string) File "C:\Users\xcent\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\re.py", line 286, in _compile p = sre_compile.compile(pattern, flags) File "C:\Users\xcent\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\sre_compile.py", line 764, in compile p = sre_parse.parse(p, flags) File "C:\Users\xcent\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\sre_parse.py", line 930, in parse p = _parse_sub(source, pattern, flags & SRE_FLAG_VERBOSE, 0) File "C:\Users\xcent\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\sre_parse.py", line 426, in _parse_sub not nested and not items)) File "C:\Users\xcent\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\sre_parse.py", line 532, in _parse source.tell() - here)

re.error: unterminated character set at position 0

The error happens because you used the bracket character ‘[‘ as if it was a normal symbol.

So, how to fix it? Just escape the special bracket character ‘\[‘ with the single backslash:

>>> re.findall('\[', 'hello [world]')

['[']

This removes the “special” meaning of the bracket symbol.

Related Re Methods

There are seven important regular expression methods which you must master:

• The re.findall(pattern, string) method returns a list of string matches. Read more in our blog tutorial.
• The re.search(pattern, string) method returns a match object of the first match. Read more in our blog tutorial.
• The re.match(pattern, string) method returns a match object if the regex matches at the beginning of the string. Read more in our blog tutorial.
• The re.fullmatch(pattern, string) method returns a match object if the regex matches the whole string. Read more in our blog tutorial.
• The re.compile(pattern) method prepares the regular expression pattern—and returns a regex object which you can use multiple times in your code. Read more in our blog tutorial.
• The re.split(pattern, string) method returns a list of strings by matching all occurrences of the pattern in the string and dividing the string along those. Read more in our blog tutorial.
• The re.sub(The re.sub(pattern, repl, string, count=0, flags=0) method returns a new string where all occurrences of the pattern in the old string are replaced by repl. Read more in our blog tutorial.

These seven methods are 80% of what you need to know to get started with Python’s regular expression functionality. If you want to learn more, check out the most comprehensive Python regex tutorial in the world!

Where to Go From Here?

You’ve learned everything you need to know about the Python Regex Character Set Operator.

Summary:

If you use a character set [XYZ] in a regular expression pattern, you tell the regex engine to choose one arbitrary character from the set: X, Y, or Z.

Want to earn money while you learn Python? Average Python programmers earn more than $50 per hour. You can certainly become average, can’t you?

Join the free webinar that shows you how to become a thriving coding business owner online!

[Webinar] Become a Six-Figure Freelance Developer with Python

Join us. It’s fun!

The Clockwork Pi GameShell is a build it yourself hand-held console aimed at indie game developers and retro gamers.  Late last year I cove red the unboxing and assembly while today we are going more hands-on with the device.  In the second half of the video we show step by step how to develop and deploy Godot games on the GameShell device.  This tutorial should also work for most Raspberry Pi based boards that support Godot development.

If you are following the instructions to build Godot Engine games on your GameShell you will need a build template.  The two options mentioned in the video are the Clockwork export template or the more generic frt export templates for Pi devices.  I have tested with both export templates successfully.

The only documentation on building Godot games for the GameShell is this forum thread.  The Clockwork GameShell is available on Amazon currently for $139 USD.  Check out GameShell in action in the video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PqAZHPnVrY&w=692&h=389]

GameDev News Programming Review

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I’ve been expressing my creative muscles this week through various news stories, although I worry that perhaps I come off as being slightly unhinged? The bright-side is you won’t have to put up with me for much longer. The new team will be in place by the start of March, and then the ‘proper’ re-launch takes place at the end of March and they’ll be taking care of you.

Before then however, I’m probably going to have some fun.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away…

New App Releases

There’s only one game of note that people are talking about, and that’s PictoQuest. A Nintendo Switch game that’s been ported over to mobile (we might start seeing this more often as games go to Switch first, mobile later) and it’s basically just picross with some window dressing. Reports suggest that It’s not quite as good as more involved RPG/Puzzle hybrids like Puzzle Quest, but if you’re a fan of this particular style of puzzle it does the job.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yQXey6t_0o?controls=0]

App Updates & News

Scythe is coming to iOS!

After some much needed TLC, I think it’s fair to say Asmodee Digital’s adaptation of Scythe is one of their better digital board game properties, and probably generally the best way to play Scythe. It’s been out of Early Access since September 2018, and there hasn’t been a peep from either the developer nor Asmodee themselves… until now!

Thanks to the eagle eyed patrons of Stately Play, we’ve spotted that AD are taking sign-ups for an iOS beta for Scythe Digital Edition. Yay!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE4EHZTVo74?controls=0]

They’ve also got a new patch for Terraforming Mars in beta as well, which is set to rework multiplayer.

GWENT Update 5.1

GWENT has just received another sizeable update on iOS (and PC), with a look at re-balancing a bunch of existing cards. The focus is on Skellige and Syndicate factions but there’s been a wide range of changes, including:

• Less rank loss at the start of a new season.
• The mobile version has new tool-tips for cards on the board
• Lots and lots of card changes and tweaking.

I’ve recently started playing The Witcher 3 on PS4 and jumped into the ‘OG’ version of the game to see what the fuss was about. I actually really enjoyed it, so I hope this comes to Android soon so I can play the fully fleshed out version.

Teamfight Tactics Closed Beta Tests

A closed beta for the mobile version of Teamfight Tactics is due to start today in select countries… and we have no idea what countries those might be. Despite an extensive blog post covering the news and some other interesting details, they don’t actually say what countries they’ll be running the test in.

The full release is still scheduled for March, however, and the rest of the post goes into detail as to what the key differences are. It’s also worth highlighting that this will be a phone-only game at launch – tablet support is coming later. Minimum requirements on iOS are expected to be iPhones 6S or later, and OS5+ with 2GB RAM on Android.

App Sales

Another slow week for sales of note, but we spotted that Tsuro: The Game of the Path is down to $3.99 (from $3.99) on both iOS and Android. It’s not the lowest price it’s ever been, but last time it was lower was April 2018 so it doesn’t go in for the cheaper prices often.

Seen anything else you liked? Played any of the above? Let us know in the comments!

This post was co-authored by the extended Azure Mobility Team.

The past year has been eventful for a lot of reasons. At Microsoft, we’ve expanded our partnerships, including Volkswagen, LG Electronics, Faurecia, TomTom, and more, and taken the wraps off new thinking such as at CES, where we recently demonstrated our approach to in-vehicle compute and software architecture.

Looking ahead, areas that were once nominally related now come into sharper focus as the supporting technologies are deployed and the various industry verticals mature. The welcoming of a new year is a good time to pause and take in what is happening in our industry and in related ones with an aim to developing a view on where it’s all heading.

In this blog, we will talk about the trends that we see in connected vehicles and smart cities and describe how we see ourselves fitting in and contributing.

Trends

Mobility as a Service (Maas)

MaaS (sometimes referred to as Transportation as a Service, or TaaS) is about people getting to goods and services and getting those goods and services to people. Ride-hailing and ride-sharing come to mind, but so do many other forms of MaaS offerings such as air taxis, autonomous drone fleets, and last-mile delivery services. We inherently believe that completing a single trip—of a person or goods—will soon require a combination of passenger-owned vehicles, ride-sharing, ride-hailing, autonomous taxis, bicycle-and scooter-sharing services transporting people on land, sea, and in the air (what we refer to as “multi-modal routing”). Service offerings that link these different modes of transportation will be key to making this natural for users.

With Ford, we are exploring how quantum algorithms can help improve urban traffic congestion and develop a more balanced routing system. We’ve also built strong partnerships with TomTom for traffic-based routing as well as with AccuWeather for current and forecast weather reports to increase awareness of weather events that will occur along the route. In 2020, we will be integrating these routing methods together and making them available as part of the Azure Maps service and API. Because mobility constitutes experiences throughout the day across various modes of transportation, finding pickup locations, planning trips from home and work, and doing errands along the way, Azure Maps ties the mobility journey with cloud APIs and iOS and Android SDKs to deliver in-app mobility and mapping experiences. Coupled with the connected vehicle architecture of integration with federated user authentication, integration with the Microsoft Graph, and secure provisioning of vehicles, digital assistants can support mobility end-to-end. The same technologies can be used in moving goods and retail delivery systems.

The pressure to become profitable will force changes and consolidation among the MaaS providers and will keep their focus on approaches to reducing costs such as through autonomous driving. Incumbent original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are expanding their businesses to include elements of car-sharing to continue evolving their businesses as private car ownership is likely to decline over time.

Connecting vehicles to the cloud

We refer holistically to these various signals that can inform vehicle routing (traffic, weather, available modalities, municipal infrastructure, and more) as “navigation intelligence.” Taking advantage of this navigation intelligence will require connected vehicles to become more sophisticated than just logging telematics to the cloud.

The reporting of basic telematics (car-to-cloud) is barely table-stakes; over-the-air updates (OTA, or cloud-to-car) will become key to delivering a market-competitive vehicle, as will command-and-control (more cloud-to-car, via phone apps). Forward-thinking car manufacturers deserve a lot of credit here for showing what’s possible and for creating in consumers the expectation that the appearance of new features in the car after it is purchased isn’t just cool, but normal.

Future steps include the integration of in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) with voice assistants that blend the in- and out-of-vehicle experiences, updating AI models for in-market vehicles for automated driving levels one through five, and of course pre-processing the telemetry at the edge in order to better enable reinforcement learning in the cloud as well as just generally improving services.

Delivering value from the cloud to vehicles and phones

As vehicles become more richly connected and deliver experiences that overlap with what we’ve come to expect from our phones, an emerging question is, what is the right way to make these work together? Projecting to the IVI system of the vehicle is one approach, but most agree that vehicles should have a great experience without a phone present.

Separately, phones are a great proxy for “a vehicle” in some contexts, such as bicycle sharing, providing speed, location, and various other probe data, as well as providing connectivity (as well as subsidizing the associated costs) for low-powered electronics on the vehicle.

This is probably a good time to mention 5G. The opportunity 5G brings will have a ripple effect across industries. It will be a critical foundation for the continued rise of smart devices, machines, and things. They can speak, listen, see, feel, and act using sensitive sensor technology as well as data analytics and machine learning algorithms without requiring “always on” connectivity. This is what we call the intelligent edge. Our strategy is to enable 5G at the edge through cloud partnerships, with a focus on security and developer experience.

Optimizations through a system-of-systems approach

Connecting things to the cloud, getting data into the cloud, and then bringing the insights gained through cloud-enabled analytics back to the things is how optimizations in one area can be brought to bear in another area. This is the essence of digital transformation. Vehicles gathering high-resolution imagery for improving HD maps can also inform municipalities about maintenance issues. Accident information coupled with vehicle telemetry data can inform better PHYD (pay how you drive) insurance plans as well as the deployment of first responder infrastructure to reduce incident response time.

As the vehicle fleet electrifies, the demand for charging stations will grow. The way in-car routing works for an electric car is based only on knowledge of existing charging stations along the route—regardless of the current or predicted wait-times at those stations. But what if that route could also be informed by historical use patterns and live use data of individual charging stations in order to avoid arriving and having three cars ahead of you? Suddenly, your 20-minute charge time is actually a 60-minute stop, and an alternate route would have made more sense, even if, on paper, it’s more miles driven.

Realizing these kinds of scenarios means tying together knowledge about the electrical grid, traffic patterns, vehicle types, and incident data. The opportunities here for brokering the relationships among these systems are immense, as are the challenges to do so in a way that encourages the interconnection and sharing while maintaining privacy, compliance, and security.

Laws, policies, and ethics

The past several years of data breaches and elections are evidence of a continuously evolving nature of the security threats that we face. That kind of environment requires platforms that continuously invest in security as a fundamental cost of doing business.

Laws, regulatory compliance, and ethics must figure into the design and implementation of our technologies to as great a degree as goals like performance and scalability do. Smart city initiatives, where having visibility into the movement of people, goods, and vehicles is key to doing the kinds of optimizations that increase the quality of life in these cities, will confront these issues head-on.

Routing today is informed by traffic conditions but is still fairly “selfish:” routing for “me” rather than for “we.” Cities would like a hand in shaping traffic, especially if they can factor in deeper insights such as the types of vehicles on the road (sending freight one way versus passenger traffic another way), whether or not there is an upcoming sporting event or road closure, weather, and so on.

Doing this in a way that is cognizant of local infrastructure and the environment is what smart cities initiatives are all about.

For these reasons, we have joined the Open Mobility Foundation. We are also involved with Stanford’s Digital Cities Program, the Smart Transportation Council, the Alliance to Save Energy by the 50×50 Transportation Initiative, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

With the Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform (MCVP) and an ecosystem of partners across the industry, Microsoft offers a consistent horizontal platform on top of which customer-facing solutions can be built. MCVP helps mobility companies accelerate the delivery of digital services across vehicle provisioning, two-way network connectivity, and continuous over-the-air updates of containerized functionality. MCVP provides support for command-and-control, hot/warm/cold path for telematics, and extension hooks for customer/third-party differentiation. Being built on Azure, MCVP then includes the hyperscale, global availability, and regulatory compliance that comes as part of Azure. OEMs and fleet operators leverage MCVP as a way to “move up the stack” and focus on their customers rather than spend resources on non-differentiating infrastructure.

Innovation in the automotive industry

At Microsoft, and within the Azure IoT organization specifically, we have a front-row seat on the transformative work that is being done in many different industries, using sensors to gather data and develop insights that inform better decision-making. We are excited to see these industries on paths that are trending to converging, mutually beneficial paths. Our colleague Sanjay Ravi shares his thoughts from an automotive industry perspective in this great article.

Turning our attention to our customer and partner ecosystem, the traction we’ve gotten across the industry has been overwhelming:

The Volkswagen Automotive Cloud will be one of the largest dedicated clouds of its kind in the automotive industry and will provide all future digital services and mobility offerings across its entire fleet. More than 5 million new Volkswagen-specific brand vehicles are to be fully connected on Microsoft’s Azure cloud and edge platform each year. The Automotive Cloud subsequently will be rolled out on all Group brands and models.

Cerence is working with us to integrate Cerence Drive products with MCVP. This new integration is part of Cerence’s ongoing commitment to delivering a superior user experience in the car through interoperability across voice-powered platforms and operating systems. Automakers developing their connected vehicle solutions on MCVP can now benefit from Cerence’s industry-leading conversational AI, in turn delivering a seamless, connected, voice-powered experience to their drivers.

Ericsson, whose Connected Vehicle Cloud connects more than 4 million vehicles across 180 countries, is integrating their Connected Vehicle Cloud with Microsoft’s Connected Vehicle Platform to accelerate the delivery of safe, comfortable, and personalized connected driving experiences with our cloud, AI, and IoT technologies.

LG Electronics is working with Microsoft to build its automotive infotainment systems, building management systems and other business-to-business collaborations. LG will leverage Microsoft Azure cloud and AI services to accelerate the digital transformation of LG’s B2B business growth engines, as well as Automotive Intelligent Edge, the in-vehicle runtime environment provided as part of MCVP.

Global technology company ZF Friedrichshafen is transforming into a provider of software-driven mobility solutions, leveraging Azure cloud services and developer tools to promote faster development and validation of connected vehicle functions on a global scale.

Faurecia is collaborating with Microsoft to develop services that improve comfort, wellness, and infotainment as well as bring digital continuity from home or the office to the car. At CES, Faurecia demonstrated how its cockpit integration will enable Microsoft Teams video conferencing. Using Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform, Faurecia also showcased its vision of playing games on the go, using Microsoft’s new Project xCloud streaming game preview.

Bell has revealed AerOS, a digital mobility platform that will give operators a 360° view into their aircraft fleet. By leveraging technologies like artificial intelligence and IoT, AerOS provides powerful capabilities like fleet master scheduling and real-time aircraft monitoring, enhancing Bell’s Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) experience. Bell chose Microsoft Azure as the technology platform to manage fleet information, observe aircraft health, and manage the throughput of goods, products, predictive data, and maintenance.

Luxoft is expanding its collaboration with Microsoft to accelerate the delivery of connected vehicle solutions and mobility experiences. By leveraging MCVP, Luxoft will enable and accelerate the delivery of vehicle-centric solutions and services that will allow automakers to deliver unique features such as advanced vehicle diagnostics, remote access and repair, and preventive maintenance. Collecting real usage data will also support vehicle engineering to improve manufacturing quality.

We are incredibly excited to be a part of the connected vehicle space. With MCVP, our ecosystem partners and our partnerships with leading automotive players, both vehicle OEMs and automotive technology suppliers, we believe we have a uniquely capable offering enabling at global scale the next wave of innovation in the automotive industry as well as related verticals such as smart cities, smart infrastructure, insurance, transportation, and beyond.

This Week at Bungie, the path was found.

The Corridors of Time have been charted. Guardians from around the world took on the monumental challenge of navigating time itself, some losing their minds in the process. We’d never shipped a puzzle of this size before, and watching the community engagement was a thrill in itself. We’ve seen a few requests for commentary on the creation and development of this puzzle. As always, we’re happy to invite you behind the scenes and share some of the thinking that goes into the experiences you play.

Destiny Dev Team: Over the past week, we’ve watched in awe as the community came together to solve one of Destiny’s most complex puzzles to date. Everyone who took the time to participate in the solution will be remembered for years to come – whether you submitted a screenshot, transcribed puzzle pieces, generated maps, wrote code, worked the data, or cat-wrangled this monumental team effort. Please take a moment to congratulate yourselves. Your efforts and accomplishments were truly inspiring. Watching the first players solve the puzzle in the early hours of Monday morning was a career highlight for many of us on the Development Team.

With the puzzle solved and the Corridors of Time closing next week, we wanted to take a moment to talk about our goals and early designs for this puzzle.

When we started planning the puzzle, we created a few goals to guide our development:

Now, we look ahead. We’ve got a rundown of performance issues that are currently under investigation, and another patch note preview for next week’s update!

Performance Pass

Over the last few months, we’ve been gathering feedback associated with game performance. This translates to moments when you may see framerate drops during activities or long load times when accessing a menu. The team has been deep in the code, looking for potential causes of these issues.

Next week, we’ll have a few performance issues addressed in Destiny 2 Update 2.7.1, including:

Some proposed fixes are currently in development for the below items. These need to pass through rigorous testing before they’ll find their way to a future edition of patch notes:

Patch Note Preview, v2

Last week, we had a short and sweet preview of what’s coming in Destiny 2 Update 2.7.1. While Hard Light is creating some excitement, we have a few more patch notes addressing Quests, Seals, Exotic perks, and more.

Investment

We’ll have a few more notes to share; expect the full list on Tuesday when Update 2.7.1 becomes available.

A Memento in Time

Keeping track of every timetable in development could make your head spin. Luckily, you have Destiny Player Support at your service, and they don’t shy away from the task. Known issues, release timelines, and more can be found below.

This is their report.

PASSAGEWAY OF THE AGES

With the Destiny Community changing the timeline, the Corridors of Time have become unstable and will only be available until the weekly reset on Tuesday, January 28.

Players have until this time to collect the 19 “The Pigeon and the Phoenix” Lore pieces and the “Savior of the Past” emblem, along with a heartfelt message from Saint-14.

UNLOCKING BASTION

We have noticed that some players are having issues getting their Bastion Exotic Fusion Rifle quest from Saint-14. To claim the quest, players need to fully complete the Saint-14 storyline. This includes completing the following quests that can be claimed from Osiris:

After completing these three quests and claiming their triumphs, players can visit Saint-14 in the Tower to pick up the “Memento” quest located in his inventory.

UPDATE 2.7.1 AND RESOLVED ISSUES

Next Tuesday, January 28, we will release Destiny 2 Update 2.7.1. This update will resolve some issues currently affecting players. Here is another preview of some of the issues that will be resolved:

CURRENT KNOWN ISSUES

Here is a list of the latest known issues that were reported to us in our #Help Forum:

• The Efrideet’s Gift triumph isn’t unlocking for players who collect 50 Iron Banner packages from Lord Saladin.
• When resetting Infamy rank, progress gets reset for the “Get Closer” step for the Green With Envy quest.
• The Sundial Fractaline Extractor III, obtained from the Nessus Obelisk, incorrectly states an increased chance to find Polarized Fractaline when completing Vanguard Strikes. The enhancement actually increases the chance to find Polarized Fractaline when completing the Sundial and the Menagerie.
• The three Dreaming Tokens given to players during the Wish-Ender quest, sometimes do not all go into a player’s inventory and cannot be reacquired on that character.
• The Warlock’s Arc Web no longer chain-lightnings enemies.

For a full list of emergent issues in Destiny 2, players can review our Known Issues article. Players who observe other issues should report them to our #Help forum.

Precision and Focus

This week, our selections are keeping an eye on their respective battlegrounds. In one, the slightest movement can result in a headshot. For the other, coordinating flesh and metal to produce an amazing musical cover, something you could headbang to as you march to victory.

Movie of the Week: Revocation

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LSLkC3K5ZI?wmode=transparent&rel=0&fs=1&w=1136&h=641]

Honorable Mention: Zulmak Metal

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwnlzEonJOU?wmode=transparent&rel=0&fs=1&w=1136&h=641]

That’s a wrap for this week. As we near the end of the season, we’ve got a few final stops on the roadmap. Next week, Cozmo will bring some details concerning the Empyrian Foundation, which is just under two weeks away.

We’ll see you again soon.

Cheers,

-Dmg04